And who is your deer? If we choose by the horns, yourself: come not Maria. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Holofernes. blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth The deer was, as you know, sanguis,- in like a jewel in the ear of calo,-the sky, the But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her crab, on the face of terra, the soil, the land, welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a now? Boyet. Rosaline Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. the earth. Nathaniel. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Holofernes Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, raBy my troth, most pleasant: how both did therest, unconfirmed fashion,-to insert again Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts; An if my hand be out, then belike your hand And such barren plants are set before us, that is in. (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those You two are book men: can you tell by your Holofernes. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord, how the ladies and I have put him man Dull. [vulgar wit! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. [man! Armado o' the one side, -O, a most dainty What is Dictynna? Dull. Nathaniel. A title to Phabe, to Luna, to the moon. Holofernes. no more; Dull pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. ceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, Jaquenetta. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read Holofernes. 'Tis true indeed: the collusion holds in the it. exchange. Holofernes. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. Dull. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange, for the moon is never but a month old; and f say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd. Holofernes. Sir, Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket. Nathaniel. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. Holofernes. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrâ Ruminat,-and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: -Venegia, Venegia, Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Chi non te vede, ci non te pregia. Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.- Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in hisWhat, my soul, verses? Nathaniel. Ay, sir, and very learned. Holofernes. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse: lege, domine. Nathaniel. I will something affect the letter, for it argues If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear facility. The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty A rare talent! Nathaniel. accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Naso, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound is master, the ape his keeper, the 'tired horse his rider. But damosella, virgin, was this directed to you? Jaquenetta. strange queen's lords. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the Holofernes I will overglance the superscript. "To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline." I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing in all desired employment, Biron." Sir Nathato the person written unto: "Your ladyship's, niel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a se Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest quent of the stranger queen's, which, accidento a hogshead. Holofernes. tally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.-Trip and go, my sweet: deliver this Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of con- paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have forgive thy duty: adíeu. SCENE 111. Another part of the same. Enter Biron, with a paper. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch-pitch that defiles. Defile? a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajar: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side! I will not love; if I do, hang me: i'faith, I will not. O! but her eye,-by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her! yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper: God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a tree. Enter the King, with a paper. King. Ay me! Biron. [Aside Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap.-In faith, secrets! smote flows: The night of dew that on my checks down Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light ; Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep: No drop but as a coach doth carry thee ; So ridest thou triumphing in my woe. Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show: But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel! No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper. Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside. Enter Longaville, with a paper. [Aside.] What, Longaville! and reading? listen, ear. Biron. Aside. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear! Longaville. Ay me! I am forsworn. Longaville. This same shall go.[He reads the sonnet. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vous for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace, being gain'd, cures alldisgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is : Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost Ezhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is: [shine, If broken, then, it is no fault of mine. If by me broke, what fool is not so wise, To lose an oath, to win a paradise ? Biron. [Aside. This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity; A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out Enter o' the way. |